Make It Rain (2004) – Tom Waits

Make It Rain is such a raw outpouring of grit and heartache. As you listen to the pounding, it’s easy to picture a chain gang in the middle of nowhere, hammering away in unison on a remote American rail line – all backbone, toil, and the clang of bare metal. The song is rudimentary and stripped back, yet intense and powerful. Waits growls through the pain left behind after his woman has gone with his best friend no less, dwelling in the darkness that surrounds him. Over time, he seems to grow used to that darkness, becoming hardened and bitter, until it spills out in the line, “I’m not Abel, I’m just Cain“.

I’d like to give special mention to the live version below from Late Show with David Letterman which has attracted more views than the original studio recording. Half the fun of Tom Waits’ music is watching him perform (when you can) – his facial expressions and minstrel-like manner make him a pure entertainer. Beyond that, Waits is also a genuine actor. He appeared in the Coen Brothers’ Western anthology film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018). In the vignette All Gold Canyon, he plays a sharp and hardy prospector searching for a great fortune in a beautiful valley, a role that’s memorably and richly captured on screen.

Make It Rain is from Wait’s 2004 album – Real Gone, his sixteenth studio album.

According to ANTI-:

Written and produced by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, his wife and long-time collaborator, Real Gone features 15 tracks of funk, Jamaican rock-steady, blues both urban and rural, rhythms and melodies both Latin and African and, for the first time, no piano. The crash and collide of rhythms and genres within a song creates a hybrid unlike any music he has and the sonic mayhem and nonsense rhyme ride to “Top of the Hill” are both punctuated by a live band and turntable playing along to Waits’ home recorded voice percussion.

She took all my money and my best friend
You know the story, here it comes again
I have no pride, I have no shame
You gotta make it rain
Make it rain

Since you’re gone, deep inside it hurts
I’m just another sad guest on this dark Earth
I wanna believe in the mercy of the world again
Make it rain
Make it rain

Night’s too quiet, stretched out alone
I need the whip of thunder and the wind’s dark moan
I’m not Able, I’m just Cain
Open up the heavens
Make it rain

I’m close to heaven, crushed at the gate
They sharpen their knives on my mistakes
What she done, you can’t give it a name
You gotta just make it rain
Make it rain, yeah

Without her love, without your kiss
Hell can’t burn me more than this
I’m burning with all this pain
Put out the fire
Make it rain

I’m born to trouble, born to fate
Inside a promise I can’t escape
It’s the same old world, but nothing looks the same
Make it rain
Make it rain

Gotta make it rain
Make it rain
You’ve got to make it rain
Got to make it rain
You’ve got to
I stand alone here
I’ll stand alone here
Singing, “Make it rain”
Make it rain
Make it rain

References:
1. Real Gone (album) – Wikipedia